Yesterday, a man called around to the door to do a job. As soon as he had set foot inside the doorway, he started talking. And talking. And talking. He spoke about the government, the police, the criminals, the immigrants, the travellers. He gave us his views on how the law should be changed to benefit the victims and not the criminals. If we thought things were bad now, he said, just wait. They were going to get a lot worse.

It must have gone on for ten minutes. With him just inside the door. No pause in conversation. No chance for us to get a word in edgeways. No realisation that, instead of looking at him, we were staring on the middle distance.

By the time he had finished his work, the world had been set to rights. This would probably have involved the incarceration and expulsion of large sections of the Irish, and non-Irish, population.

Do these people realise they boring the pants off other people? Do they realise how offensive they are being? Do they not pick up on the hints? The lack of feedback, the glazed eyes, the silences that follow their diatribes? Don’t they realise that, if nobody seems interested in what they are talking about, that the correct course of action is to stop? Just to take a breath and listen to what others have to say?